Paul Preston - The Spanish Civil War - Reaction, Revolution and Revenge

In the five and a quarter years before the right-wing backlash culminated in the military coup of 18 July 1936, cultural and educational reform had transformed the lives of many Spaniards, particularly women. Before 1931, the Spanish legal system had been astonishingly retrograde – women were not permitted to sign contracts, to administer businesses or estates or to marry without risk of losing their jobs. The Republican Constitution of December 1931 gave them the same legal rights as men, permitting them to vote and to stand for parliament and legalizing divorce. Pressure for the female vote had come not from any mass women’s movement but from a tiny elite of educated women and some progressive male politicians, most notably in the Socialist Party. Accordingly, much of this legislation was excoriated as ‘godless’ by a majority of Catholic women influenced by their priests. For this reason, the right was far more successful than the left in rallying newly emancipated female voters to its cause. In any case, in the period from 1931 to 1936, women of both the left and the right were mobilized politically and socially as never before. They were involved in electoral campaigns, trade union committees, protest demonstrations and in the educational system, both through the massive expansion of primary schooling and the opening up of the universities.

Nevertheless, public life remained a predominantly male precinct. The woman rash enough to put her head over the parapet and intrude upon the patriarchal territory of politics faced accusations of being brazen and – as happened to both Margarita Nelken and Dolores Ibárruri – from there it was but a short step to being regarded as a whore. Such misogyny was less prevalent in the more cosmopolitan atmosphere of the left in Madrid and Barcelona, although even there it was not uncommon. On the right, female independence was heavily frowned upon. The further one travelled from the metropolis, the more acute the problem became.

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